Conventional IC chip cooling apparatuses typically include a fan assembly and a heat sink. In operation, the heat sink is fixed to the upper surface of the IC chip with the fan assembly being fixed to and located over the heat sink. The heat sink is used to dissipate heat from the IC chip so as to cool it. Moreover, the fan assembly includes a fan having fan blades for moving air over the heat sink and is intended to further aid in the dissipation of the heat from the IC chip. However, there are several problems associated with these conventional cooling apparatuses.
Specifically, many of the conventional cooling apparatuses utilize large mounting clips for mounting the heat sink and fan assembly onto the IC chip. Others utilize epoxy for gluing the heat sink and fan assembly onto the IC chip. Moreover, the entire cooling apparatus has a large height since it includes both a heat sink and fan assembly. As a result of these factors, the IC chip must be removed from the printed circuit board to which it is attached so that the cooling apparatus can be mounted onto the IC chip. This makes installation of these types of cooling apparatuses cumbersome and therefore increases the time and cost of installation.
Furthermore, as indicated earlier, the heat sinks employed by the conventional cooling apparatuses are intended to further aid in the dissipation of the heat from the IC chip. However, these heat sinks are expensive and therefore increase the cost of the cooling apparatuses. Also, as alluded to earlier, these heat sinks are bulky and make the height of the cooling apparatus rather large so that the cost of installing the cooling apparatus is increased. Moreover, the intended effect of the heat sinks is diminished by the fact that they do not allow for air to be directly moved over the upper surface of the IC chip for dissipating heat from the IC chip.